by Euripides, trans. by David Grene
THESEUS, King of Athens, has been exiled from his home city of Troezen for a year for killing a local ruler. When he returns, he finds that his wife, PHAEDRA, has killed herself.
Scene
In front of the royal palace at Troezen.
Time
Day, ancient Greece.
THESEUS
Oh city, city! Bitterness of sorrow!
Extremest sorrow that a man can suffer!
Fate, you have ground me and my house to dust,
fate in the form of some ineffable
pollution, some grim spirit of revenge.
The file has whittled away my life until
it is a life no more.
I am like a swimmer that falls into a great sea:
I cannot cross this towering wave I see before me.
My wife! I cannot think
of anything said or done to drive you to this horrible death.
You are like a bird that has vanished out of my hand.
You have made a quick leap out of my arms
into the land of Death.
It must be the sin of some of my ancestors in the dim past
God in his vengeance makes me pay now.
Darkness beneath the earth, darkness beneath the earth!
How good to lie there and be dead,
now that I have lost you, my dearest comrade.
Your death is no less mine.
Will any of you
tell me what happened?
Or does the palace keep a flock of you for nothing?
God, the pain I saw in the house!
I cannot speak of it, I cannot bear it.
I cannot speak of it, I cannot bear it. I am a dead man.
My house is empty and my children orphaned.
You have left them, you
my loving wife—
the best of wives
of all the sun looks down on or the blazing stars of the night.